Happy Halloween

My friend Maegan graciously allowed me the opportunity to read her new short story. As soon as I finished it I knew I wanted to share it here as my Halloween entry. I thank her for letting me use it, and I hope you enjoy. The last paragraph hit me so hard. I wonder if she even knows the awesome truth in what she wrote here. It made me think anyway. Happy Halloween.


A Daughter’s Revenge by Maegan Rayne Nevin

I woke as I always do, with the fading light of the setting sun. My dark skin blends well with the night, which suits me fine. I am a hunter. I have been a hunter for 159 years. The prey I seek is no weak helpless victim. He is a predator of the greatest magnitude. A killer of thousands. He is my father.

I’ve watched all the vampire movies, read the books, from the absurd to the sensual. I enjoy the erotic heroes of Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton and the cardboard characters of Bram Stoker and others, but they’re all wrong. And they’re all right. But have you ever noticed all the vampires of popular fiction are beautiful with pale white skin?

I read in one of the better fictionalizations of my reality that the answer to the beauty question is that the predators choose their prey to destroy the lovely or in a perverse attempt to preserve it. Maybe there’s some truth in that. I don’t know. But if the beautiful vampire is the rule, I am the exception that proves it. I am average in my appearance, although there is an air of the predator in me that makes me striking and catches the eye of people as I go by. But does that make me beautiful? Does the gazelle find the lioness stalking through the grass beautiful? I doubt it seriously.

And that predator animal that others sense was not always there. I lived, when I lived, unnoticed until I caught the eye of the wrong person. I use the term person loosely, as you may have guessed. I had a friend who always warned me never to pray for patience. I wish he had warned me not to pray to be noticed. I only prayed the prayer once, as the sun rose on my twenty-first birthday, October 31, 1850. By the standards of that era, I was an old maid.

My skin set me apart. Too light for the field hands I toiled beside to want me as their own. Too dark to ever pass for anything other than a descendant of Mother Africa. My mother had been a house slave the master’s son noticed. I guess that teen-aged boy impacted my life not one bit other than to lighten my skin enough to burn in the summer sun shining down on the cotton fields of Louisiana. In fact, his weak genes did little to change the features of my face from those of my ancestors, and as it became apparent by my thirteenth birthday that I looked more like my mother’s mother than my mother, my days of helping in the house came to an end. I guess I was too ugly for polite white company. The master’s wife exiled me to the fields.

But while my eight years as a field slave did not make me beautiful, they did make me strong and hard. Not hard enough. Moments after I whispered my prayer to a God I was not even sure I believed in a man burst from the woods screaming in agony and plunged himself into the cool water of the creek beside me. I rushed in to help him, not thinking to ask myself any of the important questions like who was this white man and what would happen if he died and I were found standing over him. Questions like why a man ran screaming through the woods at dawn covering his eyes with an arm that smoked like the coals from a fresh dead fire. I did not think, I acted on instinct to aid and comfort. That’s when God laughed and my prayer was answered. He noticed me. My momma always said no good deed goes unpunished. In this case she was right.

He grabbed me, pulled me under the water with him, and used my body to shield his from the sun. I feared I would drown. Soon though, drowning became the least of my fears. I knew as I struggled against the grip of a man stronger than any I’d ever known, and I had known some big, strong, African men, and saw the red, blistered face through the murky water, that this was no man. The devil had come to the plantation.

He sank his fangs into my neck, draining my life and strength to fight. We must have been drifting with the current, because after a minute he surfaced in the shade of an overhang in the bank. Protected from the sun he calmed, gulped in the blood seeping from my wound, and whispered into my neck, “You’re an ugly bitch but you’ll do until I get my strength back.” At sunset he climbed from the water, slung me over his shoulder the way I’d seen the master’s son carry a dead doe across the field one winter morning when I was nine or ten. He carried me into the woods. He walked for hours and never hit a branch or stumbled over a root. It was as though the night shed the same light for him as the noonday sun did for me.

That first night he only fed on my blood. The second night he fed on my body as well. I knew hell awaited me. I had saved the devil from perishing, and then he had lain with me. I lost my virginity to Satan on all Saints Day. Surely God would not save me. When he finished grunting above me, no erotic vampire fiction experience to relay here, just the brutal, selfish, grunting, gasping thrusts of pain that thankfully did not last long, he drained me to the point where I hovered in the twilight between life and death.

“You saved my life,” he said with his evil still inside me. “Now I will save yours in return.”

He bit into his own wrist and placed the wound over my mouth. I tried not to drink the thick blood filling my mouth. I swear I did. But that part of me that would do anything to survive overrode my disgust and I choked down the offering.

“Stay out of the sun, drink the life of others, don’t lose your head, and you’ll live forever.” He stood, buttoned his trousers, turned and walked away.

I rose to follow him, to chase him down and try to kill him, but that’s when the pain hit me. For the next several hours I died over and over until I was reborn shortly before dawn, undead. I lay on the ground in the woods miles from the plantation I had never before left, marveling at the beauty I had never seen in the night. I can not describe my new vision to the living and the dead know of what I speak. It awed me. Then it attacked me. My new vision exploded into white with the first rays of the morning sun. That same survival instinct that made me drink now made me dig. I buried myself until night returned.

Somehow I knew when to rise. I crawled from the earth and made my way back to the plantation. There I found the first of many victims to feed my thirst. The master’s son, my first father, served as my first meal. I set my heart, mind and soul to find the devil that had released the anger I’d held in check so long, the beast who had transformed me from a quiet slave girl into an animal huntress.

It’s taken me 159 years to catch up. Somehow he always managed to stay one night ahead of me. Finally I caught him. Caught up in the rapture of the kill he never sensed me as he drained a girl no more than five years old. I will never forget the pleasure I felt shoving the stake into his back, through his heart, as I whispered, “Hello Father. I’ve been looking for you. Happy Halloween.”

Tonight I am 180 years old. Tomorrow night is my 159th birthday as a vampire, and for the first time in a century and a half I have no goal, no plan. I am free to choose any direction, take any path. And I have no idea where I will go or what I will do. I am empty. But the night is beautiful and alive with possibilities for a dead girl like me.

New Direction

I found some relief today in a moment of stillness, in an intuitive thought. I showed my willingness. I attempted to apply for the job I wrote of last night. But they wouldn’t take my application. Applications are only given out or accepted three days a week. I have to wait three more days. No panic this time though at the idea of a three day wait. Accept the things I can not change. I can’t apply for three more days. I can’t leave for a gallery until I either fix my car, put new tires on my mother’s spare mini-van, or buy something else (going deeper into debt since I have no money). So I might as well relax and wait. It’s the first time I’ve said anything like that in a while.

Change the things I can. I suddenly remembered working a while about twenty years ago for a man washing windows. It takes a lot to run a window washing business. You need a bucket, water, some soap, a few rags and sponges, and a squeegee. Oh yeah, and you need customers. It means walking into businesses, smiling, shaking hands, offering a service at a fair price, getting a few yes responses for every dozen or so answers of no. Then doing a good job. Most owners only want their store-front windows washed once a month. I figured if I can slowly build a base until I have as few as fifty customers, I can actually make more than what I would make at the place I tried to apply at this morning and would also still have more than enough time to travel to galleries and shoot new images.

It’s not the instant gratification I craved. But it has the potential of being a solid base. A real chance to build something from the ground up and support myself. It may take a few months to have enough customers to make money, but that’s ok. Every little bit helps, and I will still have time for the day labor I have been doing. And if I fail? Well, trying this for a few months will likely put me less deeper in debt than the trip I had planned. I also have a bonus. I know a man who started and maintained just such a business three times and made good money doing so, even through some rough economic years. I know he would help me with advice and mentorship.

I talked the idea over with a counselor. Sounds solid. A quick foray into the potential customer base netted three in less than half an hour. Looks promising. And so ClearView Window Washing Service came to be. Some more paperwork needs to be done. The business plan I planned to do for the art would be better focused here. But it’s an idea. It’s worth a try. The worst that can happen is I fail, at which point I am no worse off than I am now. Best case, I work for myself, set my own hours, never work weekends and only work about three weeks of each month, have time for my art and travel and….well, finally get a taste of the American Dream as I define it. It’s funny. I’m still chasing the dream, and my car never made it out of the driveway.

Tomorrow, I think it’s time for a little retreat. Time to get alone with my Higher Power, give thanks for the blessings of the past year, meditate, seek direction before I completely launch this new idea….get still and know.

Breaking

Humility…the willingness to be teachable. I had all I was willing to take. The pain, the hurt, the frustration, three blades on a blender cutting me to pieces. I said in my heart if God won’t save me, I’ll save myself. Good plan, except I’ve never ever been able to save myself from anything.

I made my plans. Patience long gone, I felt the fabric of my life beginning to unravel. Soon, my fears scream, it will break. Something has to give. Either something on the outside, or something on the inside. Fear gripped me saying that if I break inside once more I will plunge into the hopeless abyss. So I made my plans. I would find a way to create the fourth leg of my table. I will break the outside situation and force a change or die trying…

And once I set myself, I refused to listen to any other possibility. Because every other possibility seemed to include enduring the pain a little longer. Stiff-necked and proud I stood and declared I have taken more than I should have to take…I will take no more.

Four times today I heard from wise friends that I should at least consider the idea that maybe, just maybe, God doesn’t want me to run off half-cocked, on my own, to beat at the obstacles in my life until something gives. Each time I gave the same flippant and angry response. I’d love to stay, but if God wants me to stay, bread better fall from heaven or a job fall into my lap before I can acquire other transportation because I’m out of here. Not my will but God’s a dear friend texted to me today. I responded that I can NOT believe the current situation is God’s will. Why? Because it hurts. Because it isn’t mine. I might as well have shouted not thou will be done but mine…unless you can come around to my way of thinking.

A couple of hours after I shared in this blog God saying to me peace be still, a good friend told me, I know it isn’t easy, but sometimes you just have to get still. At that time she didn’t even know about the blog. At what point do I finally say ok, maybe I should listen. Maybe I don’t have the answer. Maybe I should regain a teachable spirit. Humble myself and be ok with not getting my way.

A friend I greatly respect told me today that going off without a plan and no money might not be the best idea. My response showed my frustration. He asked me to hold off doing anything and talk to him this evening. I agreed.

Two days ago my sponsor told me to make a business plan...something I did not and do not really want to do. I am afraid that if I look too closely at the dream it will crumble, wash away like a fantasy sand castle as the tide of reality washes in. I had a plan. Hit the galleries. Knock on enough doors until someone let me in. And the fact that I was leaving NOW meant I didn’t have the time to look any closer than that, to do the assignment the person I asked to help me gave me to do.

As my anger died, my energy went with it. Like a child who falls into a fitful sleep moments after throwing a temper tantrum, I began to crash. I almost fell asleep during the afternoon meeting I attended. I texted my friend who had so graciously offered to sacrifice his time to talk me through this insanity and frustration I feel. I truthfully said I feel exhausted and planned to simply go home and crash. I’d talk to him tomorrow. Besides I knew what he was going to say I told myself. It wasn’t that the galleries were a bad idea, but there was something wrong with the way I was setting out. I didn’t want to hear it. Which is crazy, because I don’t know what he was going to say. I figured he’d say that because deep down the voice I didn’t want to hear was saying just that. Over and over. Make a plan. It’s time to move but do it wisely and informed. Don’t just react, prepare. Preparation takes too long. I have to do something now. I have to flee. I have to change something in hopes that I will find a moments relief from the fear.

Panic. Totally filled and driven by panic I said it doesn’t matter what I do as long as I do something. I have to move. I can’t sit still. God says wait, get still, and I insist I can’t, I have to move. Ready to run into the hurricane because the sound of the winds whipping at the walls of my shelter are driving me insane.

I returned the keys to my mother's mini-van I borrowed and started for my house. This is when I ran into my father. We discussed my car. What needs to be done there will be done. It may not happen fast though. He then said if we put a couple of new tires on their extra mini-van it would be safe to take that. Not as fast as I wanted, which was days ago, but suddenly my path to escape began to look clear again. I told him I have to do something. I have put in over 300 applications in the past four months. He said he understood, and that he was proud of me for trying as long as I have. For making it this long without giving up. My defenses dropped. The idea is sound, he continued, and should be pursued, but it would be better to have a solid base to work from.

One of the first places I applied for a job a year ago is under new management he told me. This is an old wound. My parole officer sent me to that place to apply, so I felt safe walking in only to be told they would not hire someone with my charge. I remember standing in the parking lot crying after. I felt ambushed. Surely my parole officer should of known better than to send me there. Why would he do that to me? To make matters worse, it’s a job I never really wanted in the first place. A nasty, smelly, labor intensive, doesn’t quite measure up to blue collar work kind of place. But I had lowered my standards and applied only to be refused. It devastated me. It’s one of the few places I never tried to find employment at again as I have searched for work over the past ten months.

They’re under new management and desperate for workers. Would I be willing to try again, my father asked. I don’t want to. I hate the work and I’m afraid of yet another rejection…but yes, I am willing. The pay is not bad. It isn’t good, but it’s not bad. If I have a job there, my time to hit galleries would be extremely limited, but I could chip away at the debt I have acquired in the past year, earn my way, support myself, and still have a little time here and there to chase the dream of better. No chance of instant success this way, but much less chance of disaster. A pretty good chunk of the simplistic version of the American Dream as I defined it yesterday.

I believe God gave me a gift. I am an artist. I believe that the dream that fills my spirit blossomed from a seed planted by the hand of the Master Artist. It’s not that I won’t get my way if I slow down. It’s not so black and white, surrender to mediocrity or chase the dream. It’s that maybe there’s a smarter way to follow the rainbow. A safer way. And a way that actually has a greater chance at success. What a thought. But I have to humble myself enough to listen. I have to be willing to swallow my pride and say, well, I needed to do it another way, so I am not making it happen now, even if I look like a fool for making plans I did not follow through with. I need to be teachable and willing to listen to my God and those with more experience than I whose judgement is not clouded by pain and fear ( at least where I am concerned).

So I surrender. I will be still. I will put my trip on hold…a few days, or a week, perhaps longer. I will plan it. I will make the business plan I was told to make (or at least try). I will swallow my pride once more and reapply tomorrow for the job at the place that has been suggested multiple times over the months by many different people, the one place I refused to try again. I will listen and wait. And seek guidance. And calm down. Release my panic, admit my fear and face it without trying to force a solution this very second. Instant gratification, my favorite form of self-sabotage. I will see what my Higher Power has for me instead of simply trying to make something from nothing myself. I will admit I was wrong. Be ok with looking the fool. And try a wiser path.

I humble myself enough to admit that perhaps, what I most feared, that I would break soon, is exactly what needed to happen.

A conversation with God

The world outside is wet and grey. Isn’t it nifty when things match? I sit alone in this smoky room where I am reminded that the bottle is not my friend and that my life is much better than it was, despite the fact I can’t see past the rain in my life at the moment. Directly across from me the slogans encourage me, mock me, help me, frustrate me. I am a yo-yo.

Live and let live…would someone give me a chance? It’s not about you, stop feeling sorry for yourself, you self-centered twit you’ve been given more than simply a chance. You’ve been given a life.

Easy does it….doesn’t feel easy. I feel as though I’m being crushed. Well, you’re not, so chill and stop trying to force square pegs in round holes. So make the holes square so I can do this. That’s not how it works, not what that means. Wait.

But for the grace of God….you’re joking right? You have to be joking. I don’t see any grace here. That’s because you’re so frustrated and determined not to see beyond the pain you presently feel. Remember those three legs of the table of your life you claimed to be so grateful for 15 hours ago? You didn’t have any of them a year ago. Where do you think they came from? Did you earn them? Grace. An unearned gift. And you’re sitting here angry and making snide remarks to Me, and I don’t mind, really I understand, but you’re doing that in a safe place I gave you a year ago instead of being half-way to passed out. Once again…Grace.

Think think think….I’m tired of thinking. I think too much. No, not twist in your head. Think. Whatsoever things are good, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are lovely and of good report, think on these things. That’s denial. That’s a change in perspective.

First things first…I’m so frustrated, confused and afraid that I can’t figure out the first thing I need to do. You’re doing it. So what’s next? Didn’t someone already ask you to sit down and talk to him this evening before you keep trying to force things? Yes. Why don’t you set it all aside and wait until then and avail yourself of the objective viewpoint I sent you? Because I don’t want to. Why not? Because I don’t. When you figure out why that is, you’ll be closer to where you need to be and a respite from the pain.

But I’m angry. I’m angry that I’m angry. And I feel foolish. You’re not foolish, you’re hurting. And it’s ok to be angry if your anger brings you to Me and is a tool to make you look at yourself and what is wrong. It’s only when you hang on to it that it turns to poison, when it is used as fuel to excuse striking out and hurting others or yourself. When it drives you from Me and towards the desperate need for oblivion. If it makes you talk to Me, even if only to scream about how you feel or curse the rain, it’s ok…as long as after you’ve worn yourself out screaming and cursing you crawl into my lap, let me hold you, and listen as I tell you how to heal the inside. Worry about the outside, the circumstances, later. There’s no use painting the vase before it will hold water.

But I am afraid. I know. And that is why I am here. Now listen closely as I tell you the secret. You ready? Please. PEACE BE STILL.

SNAFU

The journey begun stalled quickly. I can’t help but see the parallels with my life in general. What an auspicious beginning too. I got in my car this morning. Cranked it up easily. Backed up about thirty feet, just far enough to get half-way out of my driveway and on to the blacktop county road I live by. I thought to myself here we go, and my car died. I don’t know whether to scream or cry.
As of ten forty-one, I am still sitting in my car, which is slightly in the road and mostly in my driveway trying to turn the engine over once in a while. I tried telling my car calmly that if she won’t help me get somewhere else that gas she likes to drink so much will be but a fading memory. She doesn’t seem to care. I guess she likes Nacogdoches and wants to stay. Or maybe she’s simply just as tired and worn out as I. In an effort to keep from being caught up in the self-pity trap I made a gratitude list.

What’s a gratitude list? It’s a stupid, cheesy idea that when frustrated or depressed one should write out the things in their life one is (or should be) grateful for. I know it sounds like some bogus new age positive thinking self-deluding fertilizer. But for some strange reason it quite often seems to work for me, so I did one. Top of the list? Sitting somewhat in my driveway and not dead on the road half-way to Dallas, which was to be my first destination. I wish I could say it helped. Then again, maybe it did. I do not want to seek chemical escape, I simply want to curl into the fetal position and cry or hit something. Danger Will Robinson, Danger! Dalyn is angry…and has been. God grant me the serenity to not beat the pulp out of inanimate objects or to take my huge frustrations with life out on those people and things that inadvertently add a straw to my already broken back as though they placed the entire pile there.

American Dreamer

The following is the rambling of a frightened fool not yet ready to give up on the American Dream, whatever that is exactly. Dylan Lamb described the American Dream as “the idea, that some day, some how, you'll be happy. That your kids won't grow up to hate you and disrespect you. That some day you won't come home fried out from work, only to sit in front of the television, or open a bottle of JD, or rail a line of coke, or any other addiction common to American life. But the most important part to remember... dreams aren't real.” There’s a sad and scary truth to this cynical sneer at the smoke we fight so hard to bottle.
As a child I read Death of a Salesman and the definition of the American Dream as an idea created by American society trying to make people believe anyone could be anything. I never bought into that idea. I don’t ever once remember believing that I could be anything I wanted to be, regardless of how it is measured. Material success…does it really matter if you hate yourself? And is it truly better to be totally comfortable in your own skin and satisfied with who you are while living under a bridge and eating out of dumpsters? So maybe a compromise, a merging of the two above ideas. Perhaps the American Dream is simply to be content, while not having to be delusional or insane to feel so. To have all your physical, emotional, mental, financial, and spiritual NEEDS met without having to kill yourself to achieve it. But then of course, there’s one more aspect…someone to share it with.
That’s the definition for me. America is supposed to be a placee where I can be content. A place where I can make my own way, if only I am willing to strive for that. A land of opportunity and second chances, where lives destroyed by circumstances, fate, others, or even ones self can be rebuilt if one is willing to make the changes and put in the work. Somewhere I have always believed this to be the American Dream. I don’t care about being famous or rich or loved by all. I dream of being able to support myself in a simple but comfortable lifestyle, to have a few truly good friends, and to be wholly loved by that one someone out there I can feel the same about.
No, I am not ready to give up on that dream. But I am losing faith. I no longer believe in a land of second chances. I doubt that a person’s past can lie dead, mistakes forgiven in light of who a person has become. The days where a man who is willing to work can build a life out of nothing, or from the rubble of failure, seem long past. And the hopelessness that comes from losing faith eats away at my soul.
But for a moment let me return to the land of the cynic and Dylan Lamb. The American Dream is “the idea, that some day, some how, you'll be happy. That your kids won't grow up to hate you and disrespect you. That some day you won't come home fried out from work, only to sit in front of the television, or open a bottle of JD, or rail a line of coke, or any other addiction common to American life. But the most important part to remember... dreams aren't real.” Of course dreams aren’t real, but when dreams become goals and worked for, perhaps….
I do have the vague uneasy hope that I can live a life happy, joyous and free. I dream of being a father, and since I hate neither of my parents, I believe it is possible to raise children who do not hate you. The hope is fading fast but still alive that I can find a job that doesn’t make me want to eat a bullet every day I have to work or leave no time to enjoy life. And the idea that I can live a life where I am no longer so beaten and broken that the only relief, the only way to make it through each twenty-four hour cycle is to grab a bottle or ingest a drug is a dream that I know can be reality.
Three days ago I celebrated ten months clean and sober after over twenty-five years of slow-motion suicide. Two days later I came closer to throwing that away than I have in eight months. Why? Faith, or rather the lack of it. Plain and simple, my loss, no, my regret of blowing my chance at even my simplistic version of the American Dream leaves me so frustrated and angry and afraid that I can no longer feel the hope and gratitude of just a few weeks ago. And that is a dangerous place for me to find myself.
Anger is a luxury I can not afford, neither is lack of gratitude.
It’s not that I’m not grateful. I have more of the American Dream than I have ever known. I have true friends who know who I have been and who I am now and love me. Every day, or almost every day, I grow a little closer to being the man that I can be, the man my God created me to be, to being comfortable, content, and happy with who I am inside and out. I have found a spiritual and real connection with a God who loves me. And I am eternally grateful for all of that. But those are three legs of the table that my life is stacked upon like a house of cards. Without the fourth leg, the table leans at the very least and the cards fall scattered to the floor.
Acceptance is the key to all my problems, so I’ve been told. But I can not accept a life where I can not support myself. A life where the willingness to work hard and learn and strive reaps no rewards. I do not need riches, but I can not live on the $700 a month or less I can earn through finding day labor here and there, and the generosity of friends willing to pay me to move stacks of lumber because they know I am not looking for a handout. I am looking for, even dreaming of, a chance. What a novel idea, the chance to earn my daily bread and the roof over my head.
I do not deserve this chance. America does not owe me. No one owes me anything. Yet I dream of it. I ache for it. I fear I can not survive without it. I can be grateful all day long that I have a table with three good legs, but without the fourth, I can not use the table to hold anything in a stable way. I can never use it to support anything of value and worth. My biggest regret is that I am the one who chopped the leg out from under the table of my life. I chopped it out, whittled it into a thousand slivers of kindling, set it aflame with my own destructive choices and watched my future go up in smoke and my dreams turn to ash.
Ten years ago I made a choice. The choice was wrong. Reasons I could do such a thing sound like the whining excuses of those who refuse to take responsibility for their actions. They will not be listed here. They do not matter. I did it. I accepted responsibility then, and I still do so today. I never denied what I’d done or attempted to escape my consequences. I pled guilty and walked out of prison an almost free man one year seven days ago today. I knew it would be difficult to rebuild what I myself destroyed. I understood I would have to humble myself and work hard. My passion, photojournalism, a pile of ash. The freelance and art photography I supplemented my income with became a maybe someday. I marched into the weakened job market willing to ignore the college degree and hopes of a career I loved. I looked for anything. Part-time, full-time? Either. Wages? I have worked for less than $5 an hour in the last few months and felt grateful to have the work. Dishwasher jobs taunted me, laughing at me as I reached and fell short time and time again. Faith faltered, fell ill and lies comatose now on life support from a source I find it harder daily to trust.
I give up. If I can not reach the lowered mark, I might as well shoot for the dream. The hopes of supporting myself doing what I love call to me like a siren, and I realize I hurt too much from living without the dream to care if my life will be dashed upon the rocks. Perhaps even if I find rocks instead of success I can at least hit the lowered mark somewhere else. Maybe I can even find a happy medium. Or, dare I hope, perhaps Dylan was wrong and dreams can indeed be real.
So today I pack, say goodbye to the woman I love, ask my father to feed my dogs, and prepare to hit the road. I have to try. Maybe there’s a gallery out there who will let my work stand on its own and not worry about marketing the felon. Opportunity could blossom in another path. Ash derived from the carbon of life under enough pressure becomes a diamond. The road less traveled by, at least by me, beckons. Sober, clean, willing, I strike out in search of the American Dream.